Thursday, August 11, 2016

Comparing Cities at the Same Scale

The Urban Fabric Map is a great new interactive map tool which allows you to compare side-by-side the building footprints of different cities around the world. Comparing the building footprints of cities can reveal interesting differences in the street layouts and building densities of different cities across the globe.

The Urban Fabric Map uses OpenStreetMap building data and displays it using a custom created Mapbox style. Each of the two maps includes a search box which allows you to center the two maps on any two different locations in the world.

In the screenshot above I have compared San Francisco with London. The comparison reveals the clear grid like pattern of San Francisco's streets compared to London's more organic street layout. A building count is also displayed above each of the two maps. This reveals that San Francisco has around three times as many buildings in the same sized area as London. This is despite the fact that the Golden Gate Park is a prominent feature on the San Francisco map.